An international team of scientists has completed the sequencing of the rice genome, an accomplishment that should lead to the development of new varieties of rice to meet different needs, including resistance to disease.
Researcher Takuji Sasaki of the National Institute of Agrobiological Science and head of the Japanese team in the international effort, said Monday that scientists from 10 economies completed mapping some 370 million out of 390 million base pairs -- or 95 percent of the genome -- with an accuracy of 99.99 percent.
The team made the report to agriculture minister Yoshinobu Shimamura.